The Meeting (or Have a Nice Day, Mr. Hockney) 1983

Peter Blake made this bright, tight painting, “The Meeting (or Have a Nice Day, Mr. Hockney),” and who knows when, exactly? The fun is in the puzzle of its making! There's something incredibly smooth about the surface, but it doesn’t feel concealed. It’s like Blake wants us to see how meticulously he's building this world. It's as if he’s saying, “Look at all these small, calculated strokes, and how they come together to make something believable, but also totally artificial.” Check out the woman on the skateboard. Blake’s put such precision into rendering her form, the gleam on her skin, and the way her weight rests on the board, that it makes her cartoonish socks seem all the more surreal. It reminds me a bit of Alex Katz, especially in the way Blake captures the light and flatness of LA. But while Katz goes for effortless cool, Blake seems more interested in the process of seeing itself. He is showing us that art can hold many ideas at once, and still be fun.